Saturday, December 15, 2007

Thursday December 13, 2007

1PM- 23 miles (3:02) Mt. Buckhorn (Puma Cortland II)6PM- 4 miles (:34) Colorado Running Company (CRC) Holiday Party Run (PC II)Today's first run was such a delight. Mt. Buckhorn is an ~8300' peak near Bear Creek Canyon; this run is the basis of my training in the winter time because it offers a ~2000' climb (over about 3.5 miles) in the middle of a 3hr run from my front doorstep in downtown Colorado Springs on a gravel road (High Drive--closed to cars in the winter) that remains runnable basically year round because it sees lots of foot traffic. The final mile or so to the summit of the mountain is on the Upper Captain Jacks trail from the top of High Drive. The base of High Drive is also an excellent gateway to the plethora of trails in Bear Creek/Cheyenne Canyon (Intemann, Section 16, 666 (El Diablo), Captain Jacks, Gold Camp, etc.). After being in Bozeman, I can really really appreciate the easy access opportunities these trails provide, even in the wintertime. It takes about 1hr of running (completely on trails from downtown COS---this is huge) to get to the base of the climb in the mountains, but this is usually how much warm-up time I require before really being ready to tackle the uphill.Anyways, I didn't get out the door to run until this afternoon because I was working at the CRC from 9am-1pm and because when I went to go running this morning at 5am I couldn't find the key that is needed to unlock the front (and back) doors from the inside. Yes, these doors require a key to get out of the house...a little strange. I ended up feeling pretty great for this run (even though I hadn't eaten anything but an apple all day), and then only had about an hour or so until I went back out for the CRC run prior to the Holiday Party.The CRC Holiday Party is a great running community get-together...I'm pretty sure neither Runner's Roost nor the Boulder Running Company do anything similar, but some of the guests really underline the fact that the CRC is a wonderful ambassador of trail running--Nancy Hobbs, Matt Carpenter, Cindy O'Neill, and Kelli Low were all in attendance.

The ideal in the Lieh-Tzu is a state, not of withdrawal, but of heightened perceptiveness and responsiveness in an undifferentiated world. My mind concentrated and my body relaxed, bones and flesh fused completely, I drifted with the wind East or West, like a leaf from a tree or a dry husk, and never knew whether it was the wind that rode me or I that rode the wind. -The Book of Lieh-Tzu